Customer Reviews

Twilight Sleep

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Whenever I come across a novel by Edith Wharton, I know that it is only a matter of time before I read it. I look forward to the entertainment of visiting an exotic culture--the high society that Wharton inhabited. And I also expect to find an insightful portrayal of the human foibles that are not constrained by time and social class.

Edith Wharton was both a master of the English language and a keen observer of human nature. I sometimes stumble upon a phrase that is so sharply honed that I pause to think, "Wow! That's perfect!" Such was the case in TWILIGHT SLEEP, which holds up well to Wharton's better known novels.

In this story, the members of an extended family pursue all manner of diversions, fads, and fantasies to compensate for their inability to fully embrace life. There are some archaic attitudes and politically incorrect references, but on the whole, I was amazed at how contemporary the book felt. Although written and set in the 1920s, there are modern parallels to nearly every indulgence explored by the book's characters. In many ways, little has changed!

Pauline Manford, the matriarch who links the characters together, is an archetypical American in this affectionate satire. She's an optimistic, energetic but hopelessly simplistic meddler. Her daughter Nona, however, is thoughtful and perceptive. Like other Wharton heroines, Nona sees through many of her society's standards but can't bring herself to break free of them.

I could sense the plot accelerating toward a tragedy or at least a confrontation, so surprisingly, the book became quite a page-turner. Thanks to Scribner to bringing this and other out-of-print Edith Wharton works to my attention.

This shockingly modern novel ranks among Mrs. Wharton's finest. Hard to imagine EW in the roaring twenties? She writes with the same personal grace and sly eye for the details behind the facade when focusing upon the moderns as when drawing the old New Yorkers. Those fading, listless aristocrats are included here as contrasts for the self-obsessed, alienated and narcissistic flappers. The novel resonates with modern themes, unfinished American themes; it may be the Jazz Age, but it is as now as anything I've ever read. It is also a gripping page turner- with characters at odds with the fates and the customs of society- as unforgettable as Lilly Bart's sipping of laudanum in House of Mirth and the farewell dinner for Countess Olenska in Age of Innocence.
Those uniquely Wharton flourishes abound; the sumptuous dinners with the invisible calculus of seating assignments, shifting winds of wars with reality and passion, all carried out in black boudoirs, silver crusted serving plates and overseen by women draped in jewels. Within it all the people suffer against an atavistic demon hell bent on tearing their refinement and their highly ritualized world to shreds. It is all here- within this fortunate reissue. If you are a fan of Wharton, I guarantee you will devour this book. Edith Wharton's novels are national treasures- and this one is one of her finest.

Wharton is as stunningly effective as in "A House of Mirth", here conveying the frustration of a circle of people interdependent upon one another, destined to follow society's rules no matter what the cost. Each character desperately clutches at a "twilight sleep"; the mode of coping each engages to distance reality. Masquerading as habit or whim, the painted veil of illusion overlays each mode of addictive escape. Nona, the beautiful, well-bred New Yorker struggles with an imperatrix sister-in-law Lita, whose values (and their consequences) threaten the entire social order Nona's family fabric is woven of. The Marchesa dispenses her social value as Pauline erases her son's debts. Lita's tabloid exposure and screen career must be suppressed. The men escape into work while the women flail at vanity of excess. The whistle of tragedy sounds in the distance as Nona falls into love with a married man, her brother Jim hopelessly esconced in a bad marriage with a woman he idolises, while her father works himself into an eagerly embraced oblivion, while Jim's father openly drinks to forget the societal oasis he knew before his divorce. Nona's mother compulsively schedules all their lives to death, while pursuing the escapist mysticism of faith healing and the blind support of the latest guru. As the Jazz Age brings down the curtain on the theatre of old New York and its values, Art and Cinema loom. While the family coalesces at their country estate to save Jim and Lita's marriage, each battle with their chosen talisman against life and its evils. Much more is at stake and much more is lost. This startlingly psychological novel will fascinate any student of life. The sacrifice of a fragment to obtain the societal whole inevitably comes, more starkly portrayed here than anywhere, the novel having served as forceful denouement. In the tolling bells of Whartons' worlds, the death of illusion sounds the deepest peal.

Face it: few women writers in the canon, much less male writers, can skewer women the way Edith Wharton can. Her brilliance is unparalleled, and 'Twilight Sleep' is no exception. Where Fitzgerald soft-shoed around the mores of the Jazz Age with a refined touch, Wharton simply goes for the jugular. Sometimes her sarcasm is blatant; other times, so subtle that upon finally 'getting it', I laughed aloud. And yet she never sacrificed the skill of her prose to make a point about society. Fabulous!

The reviews here are more interesting than the novel. (I won't attempt to adumbrate the plot or characters, for others have already done a fine job of it.) Unfortunately, Twilight Sleep has all the tedium and plodding of Glimpses of the Moon, A Mother's Recompense and The Reef and little of the inspiration, insight, wit and bite of The House of Mirth, The Fruit of the Tree and The Custom of the Country. In its favor are a number of fine character perspectives, but the characters have already been encountered limned with more brilliance in other Edith Wharton novels. In addition, there's the expected high-quality of writing. But all this is simply not enough to hold together a work which seems to go nowhere and which, in light of what came before it, appears to have little reason to have been written--and the deus ex machine type denouement completely unworthy of the author does not improve the situation. Well, no one hits a homer every time and this dud in no way diminishes the high respect which Edith Wharton deserves.

Can you imagine if Henry James and PG Wodehouse had collaborated to write a novel about the newly liberated morals of the Roaring Twenties? They didn't, but leave it to Edith! She came up with this laugh-out-loud farce about the Jazz Age in one of the last books she completed. Although it is available in PDF on the web, Amazon would serve its army of Wharton-holics well to make it available in Kindle format.

Twilight Sleep seems to have a different tone from other Edith Wharton works, and it seems to convey the feeling of the 1920s. Wharton takes a particularly searing look at the wealthy, who, having everything, seem bent on doing anything just to create some drama and struggle in their lives. The main character, sensible Nona, serves as a contrast. As another reviewer noted, the book despite its age, feels remarkably contemporary, and there is nothing dated about it. The heiress Pauline's dabbles with "spirituality" and "Inspirational Healers" seem very familiar. I never tire of reading Edith Wharton, her insight into the human condition is amazing, and there will be much to think about after reading this.

Perhaps one of Wharton's lesser-known works; nevertheless a fascinating glimpse of the upper-class New York of the 1920's. Wonderful descriptions of places and people, with issues that we are still trying to deal with today.